Book Review - Cautionary Tales by Emmanuelle de Maupassant

​* * * * I give Cautionary Tales 4 stars! I was given a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Not for the faint of heart or the easily offended. Luckily, I don’t belong in either of those groups. I got such a kick out of Cautionary Tales and I believe anyone with a dark and somewhat raunchy sense of humor will, too.

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What I Liked:

• I hope the author didn’t intend me to take the work too seriously. The concept of demons and the souls of the departed peeking at us through windows, awaiting our inevitable mistakes, was told with such a lilting twist that I laughed aloud as often as I cringed. Don’t expect horror. It’s more like dark comedy.
• The author is not lacking for confidence and it makes the book. The stories are told without apology; whether we’re watching a widower coupling with his neighbor before his wife’s body is cold or a demon coupling with a roomful of unsuspecting, horny maidens. The tales are straightforward, erotic in a fierce and at times unsettling way, and unafraid to delve into the depths of human vice.
• The author has some serious storytelling skills and can get a lot done in a short span of time. The tales are told in the folk tale tradition, and go down like potato chips; just one more, and another, until the bag is empty and the book is done.

What I Didn’t Like:

• I found the opening poem – portions of which are carried throughout as they relate to each tale – long and a bit heavy handed.
• There are definitely some heavy topics touched on in these tales. While it is the nature of folk tales to be light in spite of the serious lessons they teach, and while I understand that these tales are not meant to have real “morals” for life outside the book, my feminist sensibilities were tweaked here and there. Women are often seen punished somehow for their sexuality. However, as I stated before, the book is not for the sensitive or the impressionable. It’s for adults with a dark sense of humor. So, I feel the author’s only obligation is to entertain; which she does.

 
Would I Recommend This and to Whom:
For mature audiences who don’t take fiction too seriously. Dark and raunchy sense of humor required.
 
Favorite Quotes:

• “We who are beyond the mortal world see many things from the edges; we hear the subtle shifts of rhythm in the beat of a blackening heart.”
• “And we, from within the sigh of the trees, and the soft moss underfoot, and the calling of night birds, watched him as he watched, gazing where he should not.”